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Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#541

Post by akerl_ »

tptacek wrote: post #537
akerl_ wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s criteria for defamation. Jones likely met them, but it didn’t matter here because he lost by default in the trial due to his overwhelming failure to engage with the legal system in his own defense. If an artist published songs with lyrics that met the criteria for defamation, and then people heard the song and committed crimes, the artist would be liable for defamation and the listeners who committed crimes w…

Your best Google search here, for what it's worth, is [defamation damages model jury instructions]. :)

I’m lazy, I’ll probably wait a couple days for the folks on the Serious Trouble podcast do the math for me. But point taken.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#542

Post by tptacek »

akerl_ wrote: post #515
pen2l wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Pedantic nitpicking) You mean anti -SLAPP laws. For others' curiosity: A SLAPP is Strategic lawsuit against public participation , a strategy for plaintiffs to silence opponents by way of burdening them with an onslaught of lawsuits and hoping they are scared away by potential legal costs of mounting a defense thereby resulting in them just giving up. The potential for this strategy to have chilling effects gave ris…

If anybody has made it this deep in the thread and has curiosity left to spare, I’d like to recommend https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/ , which is no longer active but whose episodes remain highly valuable in understanding first amendment law.

I think in theory he's still making these, but what you really want to do is subscribe to "Serious Trouble", Ken White's (same guy) podcast with Josh Barro.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#543

Post by tootie »

robswc wrote: post #427
tootie wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'd find traditional media companies routinely getting convicted of defamation this egregious. Although, FOX and Newsmax are both facing $1B+ penalties over their reporting on Dominion Voting Systems. And they're both pretty much dead to rights with Dominion able to point very directly to lost revenue as a result of their deliberate lies. Just reporting something incorrectly isn't punishable at all. P…

Well sure. Technically lying isn't punishable either. Only getting caught and only in some circumstances. I'm probably just a bit bias, as I remember a bit of a fiasco with content creators relatively recently with the Johnny Depp trial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/02/johnny-... here's an excerpt from the editor's note: The first published version of this story stated incorrectly that Internet i…

That level of lax fact checking pales in comparison to what Jones did. Jones didn't make a mistake. He acted with deliberate and relentless malice. The standards for actual civil punishment for slander, libel or defamation are very high. Just getting facts wrong is nowhere near those standards. Certainly not if you issue a prompt correction when it's brought to your attention. Even saying "I think Sandy Hook was staged" isn't a crime. It's as valid an opinion as thinking the earth is flat or the 2020 election was stolen. Jones absolutely tormented people in a vulnerable state for personal gain and did so relentlessly for years when he very well knew he was lying the whole time.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#544

Post by akerl_ »

tptacek wrote: post #542
akerl_ wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anybody has made it this deep in the thread and has curiosity left to spare, I’d like to recommend https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/ , which is no longer active but whose episodes remain highly valuable in understanding first amendment law.

I think in theory he's still making these, but what you really want to do is subscribe to "Serious Trouble", Ken White's (same guy) podcast with Josh Barro.

Hah. I just mentioned that one in a separate reply to you.

I’d love a world where we continue to get Make No Law episodes, but I’d given up hope after it going dormant for a while.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#545

Post by Georgelemental »

HyperSane wrote: post #407
unknownaccount wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

They aren't independent actors because they were highly impressionable people whose actions were influenced by Jone's lies.

Ah yes, we should let the government decide that some people are "highly impressionable" and therefore not human beings with agency or rights. That's definitely not a terrifying precedent to set, nothing to see here

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#546

Post by greycol »

entiex wrote: post #335
shadowgovt wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this particular venue, damages were determined by the jury (which is not the case in all states). Relevant to that process, Jones took the stand in his own defense, to show remorse and indicate why the jury should find for a lower penalty, and... Did the opposite of that. He lost his temper and managed to strongly indicate he had learned nothing and showed no remorse. Juries tend to take a particularly dim view of…

But these aren't puntive damages, they're compensatory damages, and plainly excessive ones at that. Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused, and so should have no bearing on the amount of compensatory damages. To the extent that they did, that's an injustice. These damages are absolutely insane for emotional distress and defamation. The average lifetime earnings of a US citizen are…

It's not hard to argue the ongoing security costs could easily reach that amount. i.e Security for trump and family cost 30 million in 2017 and these families would suffer similar political targeting. Though ofcourse we can argue that trump was purposefully inflating those costs to enrich himself. But even then we're only talking 120 mil per family for quite possibly the rest of their lives.

While I think there are many people would forgo that protection or pay less for protection it's one of the ineffable personal balances of security/cost/ease of life that I could easily see a jury saying "if they went the perfect security route then they could easily spend this much".

You can't ignore that cost just because they'd normally never earn enough to pay for that security... much like a company that causes an illness is on the hook for cost of treatment even if a person couldn't normally afford to treat themselves.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#547

Post by donatj »

tptacek wrote: post #501
donatj wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one possibly cause $64 million in straight damages per plaintiff? This isn't even the punitive yet. You could take everything I own and prevent me from ever earning another dollar and it wouldn't be $64 million dollars.

By making millions of dollars by deliberately amplifying the pain of a murdered parent, so that they're harassed and threatened, face to face, even when they visit states across the country from where they live. It's not complicated. Jones really did fuck these people's lives up, and he did so knowing that their lives had already been devastated. It's hard to even think of a way to profit from the mass murder of firs…

His profit isn't "actual damages" though. They haven't even decided punitive damages yet.

I can't figure the math on how any of them could have been damaged $64 million. The US government values a human life at $10 million, is this 6x worse than what the killer did?

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#548

Post by _-david-_ »

aschearer wrote: post #532
tptacek wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(a) Stuff like this is supremely unhelpful and corrosive to the thread. (b) It's obviously not the case that Jones is getting a sympathetic hearing from this thread; instead, you're noticing mostly the randos posting pro-Jones stuff that lives briefly before being flagged to the bottom of the site.

In this thread there are many non-new accounts taking positions such as: - This infringes on the first amendment - He shouldn't be punished solely for his speech - What about this or that person who did X - The punishment is too much - Anyway, he'll never pay so it doesn't really matter All these strike me as being sympathetic to Jones. Why even post such things if not to elicit sympathy or muddy waters? Meanwhile yo…

Being sympathetic is not the same as a fan. I think you are misrepresenting the views held by those making the statements.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#550

Post by tptacek »

akerl_ wrote: post #544
tptacek wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in theory he's still making these, but what you really want to do is subscribe to "Serious Trouble", Ken White's (same guy) podcast with Josh Barro.

Hah. I just mentioned that one in a separate reply to you. I’d love a world where we continue to get Make No Law episodes, but I’d given up hope after it going dormant for a while.

He's better with Barro than when he's trying to make Legal Radiolab. :)
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